Sarah Thomson and Liberals continue mating dance: she’ll run in whatever seat the party can find for her

Sarah Thomson and Liberals continue mating dance: she’ll run in whatever seat the party can find for her

The Toronto Star, having already reported that Sarah Thomson was going to run for the Ontario Liberals in Parkdale-High Park, is now reporting (whoops!) that Thomson will in fact be running in Trinity-Spadina. According to “insiders,” she’s already been assured that her nomination will be uncontested. So, while her choice of political parties hasn’t changed, her odds of success might have.

According to the Star:

Her bid to unseat veteran NDP MPP Rosario Marchese would help Premier Dalton McGuinty move toward his target of fielding more than 55 per cent candidates who are women in ridings not held by the Liberals.

While Thomson, publisher of Women’s Post, abandoned her low-budget mayoral campaign well before the Oct. 25 election, she impressed the Liberals with her passionate campaigning for rival and former deputy premier George Smitherman against eventual winner Rob Ford.

If Thomson is being moved to Trinity-Spadina, her chances of victory would actually get marginally worse. Marchese won his seat at Queen’s Park by a slightly larger percentage than west-end MPP Cheri Di Novo (9.4 per cent vs 8 per cent). For the Liberals, those two seats actually fall into the “Easily Poachable NDP-Held Seats in Toronto” category. Thomson can thank her lucky stars she’s not running against Michael Prue (Beaches-East York) or Peter Tabuns (Toronto-Danforth), both of whom won their seats with double-digit margins. Unless the Liberals want to find one of their own MPPs to roll over for Thomson (cue laugh track), Trinity-Spadina might be as good as it gets for her.

With Rocco Rossi running as well, all Toronto needs is for Joe Pantalone to decide to run for provincial office and it would be a perfect storm. We’d hold out hope for George Smitherman running again, but according to his latest TVO interview, he’s developing his expertise in “building Lego towers”. Awww.

• Sarah Thomson will get nod in Trinity-Spadina [Toronto Star]

(Image: Thomson, Tsar Kasim)